Congressional Democrats are infighting this week over Sen. Bernie Sander’s (I-VT) reported desire to levy $2.4 trillion in taxes within the trojan horse “infrastructure” package.
“They’re all trying to figure out what the bottom line is,” said a source familiar with the infighting told the Hill. “Schumer had $2.4 trillion [in tax revenues] plus $600 billion from the Medicare drug-price negotiation. He’s trying to figure out: ‘What can I get my caucus to support? What’s the revenue number?’ It’s not clear to me he can get $3 trillion.”
“There’s a lot of pressure on these people, pressure from both sides. Manchin has been very clear he wants it all paid for,” the source explained about Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) negotiations with the White House over President Joe Biden’s 28 percent desired corporate tax rate, compared to Manchin’s counter at 25 percent.
Senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Matthew Gardner also told the Hill Biden will most likely buckle to Manchin’s demands.
“Biden hasn’t explicitly said he said he’s changing the plan to 25 percent, which is what Joe Manchin wants,” Gardner said. “But the hard reality of narrow majorities in both houses is that if Manchin says 25 percent that’s kind of the [limit]. So that seems like the most likely thing where you can say it’s going to be different from what [Biden] proposed initially.”
The infighting among Democrats could “complicate plans to pass a budget resolution in the House and Senate this month to set up” the trojan horse infrastructure bill, Bloomberg reported Monday, while Sanders’ Senate Budget Committee is planning “a $6 trillion proposal covering Biden’s agenda as well as an expansion of Medicare,” global warming initiatives, suburb displacement with low-income housing, along with other radical items.
Still, the way forward in the Senate is easier than the dynamics in the House, where with “10 House [Democratic] members, you can stop anything.”
President of Americans for Tax Reform Grover Norquist told Bloomberg, “No Republican in the House or Senate will vote for tax increases. This is how the Democrats lost the House and Senate in 1994 and the House and six Senate seats in 2010,” referring to trojan horse reconciliation package that must pass the House nearing the 2022 mid-term elections.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) pushed out a statement Monday that lends itself to helping far-left to force a “greener infrastructure bill” through congress because spending money on traditional infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, and ports, is an “old view of infrastructure.”
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